An Analysis of Partisan Gerrymandering
Dave’s Redistricting.
With Democratic failures to secure a single chamber in multiple swing states, including Texas, North Carolina, and Michigan, during the 2020 elections, many predicted that the Democrats would lose their majority in the House of Representatives solely as a result of Republican gerrymandering. After all, during the last redistricting cycle, the 2010 elections, Democrats were wiped out in many competitive seats as Republicans made massive gains. Utilizing their newfound power in many competitive states, they gerrymandered the maps to ensure dominance throughout the decade, and many of these gerrymanders have locked Democrats out even though they have made gains. With disappointing results, many predicted complete disaster.
However, by the end of the process, the mainstream consensus appears to have drastically shifted. Instead of articles dooming about Democratic losses, many have noted that Democrats are actually set to gain anywhere from three to five seats as a result of redistricting, the opposite of what they had initially predicted. Even with worse than expected results in many swing states, Democrats seem to have held up relatively well, and it appears that 2020’s redistricting cycle is not set to be a repeat of 2010. This begs the question: What had changed between the beginning and end of the 2020 redistricting cycle for Democrats’ fortunes to suddenly increase?
Throughout the past decade, a variety of anti-gerrymandering reforms have been passed that have reduced the power of partisan gerrymandering. One of the most prominent reforms would be the rise of independent redistricting commissions, bipartisan commissions who listen to public input in order to create maps in a public and open manner.
While many of the expansions of independent redistricting primarily happened in blue-leaning states, such as Colorado and Virginia, crucially, these commissions have also now been formed in swing states like Michigan. In the current maps, Trump won eight out of the fourteen Congressional districts despite losing the state by 2.78%. Now, under the new iteration of maps created by the independent redistricting commission, Biden now wins the majority of Congressional districts, seven districts to Trump’s six, accurately reflecting the presidential results.
In Montana, a state that has gotten a second Congressional district after losing it three decades ago, their long-established independent redistricting commission divided the state East-West, compared to the North-South divide that Republicans would have gerrymandered, giving Democrats a fighting chance in the newly created Western district. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden came within seven points of capturing this district, and Steve Bullock, during his failed senate run, lost it by under a percentage point.
Furthermore, states that utilized independent redistricting commissions before, most notably California and Arizona, continued to do so even if the maps produced were flawed, especially Arizona’s Congressional map, where Democrats have the chance of being reduced to just two Congressional districts, down from the fair five that they currently hold. Despite these flaws and occasional missteps, these commissions represent a positive step forwards towards encouraging fairer representation in Congress.
However, independent commissions are not the only tool being used to make maps fairer, especially in swing-states that have Republican dominated legislatures as a result of their previous round of gerrymandering. State supreme courts are now stepping up and blocking Republican gerrymanders in a variety of swing states, forcing them into creating more proportional maps that better represent the state’s partisan breakdown.
In Pennsylvania, the state supreme court was not only successful in blocking Republican gerrymanders, but due to the Republicans’ unwillingness to cooperate, decided to appoint their own commission to draw maps. The resulting map produces a 9-8 advantage for Democrats according to the 2020 presidential election results, which matches Biden’s narrow win over Trump in the state. In North Carolina, after the state supreme court struck down Republican maps that intended to create a massive 11-3 advantage for them, they were forced to compromise to produce a fairly proportional map that splits seats evenly, giving each party seven seats.
Ohio Republicans, on the other hand, are refusing to back down, having sent multiple maps to the state supreme court that have been struck down for being blatant partisan gerrymanders. Their most recent map is a 11-4 Republican gerrymander that creates two extremely marginal Democratic districts with the intent of producing an eye-boggling 13-2 advantage. It is because of these state supreme courts that Democrats are getting a fighting chance in contesting these Congressional districts.
Despite this progress in creating maps that are undoing the efforts of Republican gerrymandering, Republicans have still notched a variety of wins where ballot reforms or court interventions are simply not possible. The largest of their redistricting wins would be Texas. On the current map, during the 2020 presidential election, eight Republican held congressional districts were won by Trump by under five points, and given how strongly the suburbs are shifting blue in the state, Republicans were going to lose most of them by the end of the decade. However, because they had held their trifecta, they were able to draw a map to ensure Republican dominance in Texas. By packing Austin voters into a new Congressional district and giving two Democratic incumbents who won close elections safe districts, Republicans were able to shore up the rest of their districts, and all but assure that Democrats will not be able to pick off any new seats for the next few years, at the very least.
While Texas is their biggest victory, Republicans managed to notch smaller victories in a variety of states. In Utah, for instance, the Democratic leaning Salt Lake County is cracked into four districts while in Nashville, the same happened with the Democratic stronghold of Nashville, split into three safe Republican districts. In Georgia, Democrats lost a district in Northern Atlanta while in Kansas, Republicans took out Black-majority precincts from the Democratic district anchored by the Kansas City suburbs and placed them in a rural, heavily White district. Furthermore, the far-right Supreme Court allowed for Alabama’s gerrymander to remain in place despite its major VRA violations for underrepresenting Black constituents by packing most Black voters into one district. This ruling, unfortunately, makes it unlikely for another Black-majority district to be created in Louisiana and South Carolina, which further cements Republican dominance in the South.
Because Republicans have gone rampant with gerrymandering in the states they controlled, Democrats were forced to do the same in order to keep up despite supporting a federal ban on partisan gerrymandering. In New Mexico, Democrats choose to weaken their strength in two Congressional districts in order to make all three Congressional districts Democratic leaning. This was also seen in Maryland, where Democrats decided to finally eliminate the sole Republican district left, though it’ll be a difficult flip since Biden won the new district by less than five points. With their new district as a result of reapportionment, Oregon Democrats decided to create a new Democratic district, giving them a 5-1 advantage in the state.
However, the two most major Democratic wins in redistricting would be New York and Illinois. In New York, Republicans lost three districts as a result of redistricting, one upstate that got eliminated as a result of New York’s loss of a Congressional district along with the Staten Island district and one of the two Long Island districts. In Illinois, Republicans were knocked down to just three districts, down from the already pitiful five that they had held as Democrats strung together a variety of cities scattered downstate Illinois to form a new Democratic Congressional district while eliminating a Republican district due to a seat loss as a result of reapportionment.
Ultimately, without reform, redistricting will just become more messy as political parties race to find ways to draw maps that will secure their dominance until the next redistricting cycle. For instance, Republicans in Ohio and North Carolina are planning on flipping the state Supreme Courts from anti-gerrymandering to pro-gerrymandering majorities in 2022 in order to redraw maps to secure a large Republican majority in the states. In Ohio, most notably, Republicans kept passing blatantly gerrymandered maps until the state Supreme Court eventually relented since the primary date was approaching, and thus, handed Republicans a potential 13-2 gerrymander.
Furthermore, without federal reform, when gerrymandered maps are challenged and sent to the courts, there is little consistency in how courts will rule on these cases. For instance, far-right partisan courts, like the Supreme Court of Texas or Florida, ruled in favor of Republicans despite the fact that their maps are extraordinarily gerrymandered. On the other hand, state Supreme Courts controlled by Democrats, such as the Supreme Court of New York or Maryland, are much less partisan and struck down those states’ Democratic gerrymanders. Democrats in Maryland were not only forced to return the state’s only Republican seat but opened up a new potential competitive seat that Republicans could flip in the upcoming midterms. While New York Democrats are attempting the same strategy as the Ohio Republicans, stalling out time until the upcoming midterm elections, given how late their primaries are, this attempt is unlikely to succeed. Should the Democratic gerrymander of New York be overturned, Democrats will be facing a much tougher midterm election.
It’s abundantly clear that these minor but flawed improvements can only go so far in securing a fairer and more democratic government. Only a ban on partisan gerrymandering on a federal level will be able to stop these political battles for good and ensure fair representation for all.